Press release: Computing in schools is as essential as literacy and numeracy - February 2015

Computing in schools is as essential as literacy and numeracy

Sector experts consider the most effective ways to embed digital literacy across the curriculum

Naace, the community of educators, technologists and policy makers today announced a focus on raising achievement through technology at its annual Naace Strategic Conference.

The conference, which will be held at East Midlands Conference Centre March 25th and 26th, comes a month after the Select Committee on Digital Skills called on the future Government to establish a single and cohesive Digital Agenda to secure the UK’s position as a digital leader.

The foundation of the report is based on the real concern that that the UK ‘will be left behind in this new digital era’, something that will be addressed at this year’s Naace Strategic Conference.

Roger Broadie, Naace Board of Management member and tutor on the Naace KS3 Computing, will be joined by inspirational speakers and educational technology sector experts to discuss and share ideas on how to significantly raise achievement through technology enhanced connected-world learning. The objective of the conference is to establish a strategy to tackle the widened ICT, digital literacy and computer science requirements.

“We will be discussing the importance of the computing curriculum and how it is as essential as literacy and numeracy”, said Broadie. He continued, “The shortage of young people capable of filling jobs in the technology sector is not sustainable and needs to be addresed urgently.

“Computing teachers have, on average, one hour of contact time per week per class. Many teachers are justifiably concerned that teachers of other subjects do not embed computing into their teaching. As high levels of computing knowledge and skills are now essential that digital literacy is a skill included across the curriculum. Many children are not getting the computing education they need.

“It is now time for language, media and art teachers to take full responsibility for teaching the creative and graphical sides of computing, for maths teachers to teach about spreadsheets and algorithms, and for all subjects to include relevant aspects of computing and data handling.”

Sessions scheduled throughout the Naace Strategic Conference will explore the different challenges schools face in embedding this extremely important skill set into the curriculum.

The Naace Strategic Conference returns to the East Midlands Conference Centre on 25th - 26th March 2015.

Press release: Computing in schools is as essential as literacy and numeracy - February 2015